Electronic music is an undeniably, overwhelmingly male-dominated field, with The Chicago Tribune reporting as recently as last summer that Lollapalooza’s “Perry’s Stage” featuring electronic acts only had one female DJ/producer booked for the entire weekend. And when Suzanne Ciani first became infatuated with synthesizers in the early 1970s, there were few people working in the medium, let alone women. The new documentary A Life In Waves tracks the 2017 Moog Innovation Award recipient’s career, from her beginnings composing scores and creating sound effects for film, TV, and video games—the pinball game Xenon features her work, as does Meco’s infamous Star Wars disco soundtrack—to her advertising work and later transformation into a successful New Age, jazz, and solo piano artist with 15 albums under her belt.
In the exclusive clip form A Life In Waves below, Ciani describes how she created one of advertising’s most iconic sound effects: The sound of a bottle popping open and liquid pouring out that’s been featured in innumerable Coca-Cola commercials.
A Life In Waves is currently playing in select theaters, and hits VOD on August 4.